


distance

by falterth



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, BAMF Hyuuga Hinata, Gen, short scenes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-23
Updated: 2018-07-23
Packaged: 2019-06-15 04:15:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15404760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/falterth/pseuds/falterth
Summary: The Hyūga do not play pranks. Hinata does, and people yell at her.The Hyūga do not rely on ninjutsu. Hinata does, and her family turns their own milk-white eyes on her and she feels their cold and sherevelsin it.The Hyūga have expert chakra control and wield their power like a needle, fine and graceful and piercing. Hinata expands her chakra reserves by nearly burning them out every day, and she wields her power like a bludgeon, hard and sturdy and unyielding.Hyūga aren’t frontline fighters, but Hinata willbecomeone, through sheer will and determination andyou can’t tell me no.She is set on her goal and nothing—not even death—will shake her from it.





	distance

**Author's Note:**

> This fic came to me suddenly, but it came to me at a time during which I couldn't write. I was actually out on a scooter, and the words, "Hyuuga Hinata is untouchable, and she hates it," came to me.
> 
> When I got home, I wrote like I was possessed, and within an hour: boom. Fic.
> 
> Please forgive me for any mistakes/weaknesses because it's past one in the morning and I _just_ finished writing this thing. Please leave a comment/kudos if you liked it!
> 
> (Preferably a comment.)

She’s born the Hyūga heir.

The house is quiet. The wooden floors are always gleaming, and maids and whatnot are never seen.

Hiashi—father—is distant and strict. She does not see him every day. Her mother is dead. She will never have a brother or a sister, and that makes her father push her all the harder. 

She does not have friends. Her father pushes her to make friends among those belonging to the main house, like her cousin Neji. 

Nobody in school will approach her because she is the daughter of one of the most influential clans in Konoha, and they are afraid to anger her father.

Hyūga Hinata is untouchable, and she hates it.

 

* * *

 

Other girls are bullied—girls that act like her, that is.

Girls like Haruno Sakura, who are civilian-born, are made fun of for being distant and closed-off. Girls like Haruno Sakura are teased and mocked for even the smallest of differences between them and everybody else. 

Hinata, who feels a lot more like her name is Hyūga-san or Hyūga-sama at times, is jealous even of girls like Haruno. 

At least people would acknowledge her beyond polite nods. She would take an insult over a glance any day. She would take a punch over the silence that reigns in her corner of the classroom. 

She hates silence.

Hinata wants to climb, all the way to the academy roof, up all ten flights of stairs, and she wants to balance on the railing using nothing but her feet and chakra—because she can _do_ that, but she can’t _tell_ anyone because she doesn’t have anyone to tell except her father who taught this to her in the first place—and she wants to spread her arms and shout, “I am here!” 

She wants—but she cannot have.

 

* * *

 

A boy named Uzumaki Naruto sees her, and this is the start of the avalanche.

He sees her one day in the winter, when she’s making her way home but is caught in a snowstorm, and the two of them kill time in Naruto’s apartment because the Hyūga compound is all the way across town.

She gets a fledgeling taste of what being seen is like, and she decides that she must have more of this.

She _must._

A week later, she has a semi-public falling-out with her father that ends in her apologizing stiffly and with him unhappy for a month.

She pushes it further, and further, until she is finally and truly rebellious.

People look at her. People stare at her, and she smiles, because even though they look aghast, even though they look at her with shame in her eyes, they’re looking at _her_ instead of at the Hyūga heir.

The Hyūga do not play pranks. Hinata does, and people yell at her.

The Hyūga do not rely on ninjutsu. Hinata does, and her family turns their own milk-white eyes on her and she feels their cold and she _revels_ in it.

The Hyūga have expert chakra control and wield their power like a needle, fine and graceful and piercing. Hinata expands her chakra reserves by nearly burning them out every day, and she wields her power like a bludgeon, hard and sturdy and unyielding.

Hyūga aren’t frontline fighters, but Hinata will _become_ one, through sheer will and determination and _you can’t tell me no._  

She is set on her goal and nothing—not even death—will shake her from it.

 

* * *

 

Hiashi remarries, entirely unexpectedly.

Hyūga Hanabi is born, and Hinata is not allowed near her.

Maybe Hinata has grown callous. Maybe she has grown cold. But the only thing she feels is relief when Hanabi is born and she is sternly informed that she will _not_ be coming near her father’s second daughter. 

Hinata won’t be the heir anymore. 

Someone else will be able to take her place.

_Someone else._

Hinata makes sure that she is disowned. Hanabi will become the heir.

She accomplishes this feat by coming home and smashing through one of the walls of the compound on her way to the training grounds, and then doing even _worse._ She destroys furniture, puts cracks in the ground with chakra-enhanced feet, blows a hole through the ceiling.

She laughs for the first time in a year.

Hiashi looks thunderous. Hinata finds herself unable to care, riding high as she is on the fresh wave of her newfound joy. 

People _see_ her. People see the room she has destroyed and they think, _Hinata did this,_ not, _Hiashi-sama’s daughter did this._

It is acknowledgement. It is good.

 

* * *

 

Hinata is placed on a team with Uzumaki Naruto and Uchiha Sasuke. 

The former regards her with an appreciative eye, most likely because they are kindred spirits and although they do not talk much, Hinata _knows_ that he needs acknowledgement the same way she does, _knows_ through the pranks and the smiles and the ‘my dream is to be Hokage!’ and the _everything_ that he is just like her. 

The latter regards her with nothing more than disdain, and maybe a bit of lingering disgust. It will be fun, Hinata thinks, to see Uchiha Sasuke acknowledge her.

 

* * *

 

He sees her, finally, after she crushes him in their first spar. 

“I used Hyūga clan techniques, but they’re in _my_ style,” she tells him when he asks, from where she’s holding his face into the ground. “You know what I wanted?” 

Sasuke grunts.

“I wanted to be _seen,_ ” she whispers fiercely into his ear, and hopes that he understands what she’s about to say. “I wanted to be seen, so I took my clan’s techniques and I _broke_ them. And I’m all the more powerful for it. I took the words of the people who hated me and I made myself so strong that they couldn’t even touch me.” 

Sasuke takes a shuddering breath in and out. And in. And out. Hinata is content to count his breaths until he decides to grace her with spoken language.

“Get off me,” he says, and she does, and he regards her with a careful look.

And he is looking at _Hinata_ this time, not at the teammate he was put on a team with, not the number one kunoichi or anything like that. He is looking at Hinata, who grew up surrounded by smooth, bare branches, graceful and white and caging her in, and turned them into thorns and brambles that _she_ directs, that _she_ controls.

“Take care of yourself,” she tells him in parting.

 

* * *

 

Two years pass without event, save for the mission to Wave Country and the Chūnin Exams, when Orochimaru had tried and failed to recruit Sasuke to their side.

Hinata is a chūnin, living in the shinobi apartment district with her two teammates. Sasuke is a chūnin. Naruto is a genin; he will retake the exam in Kumo next year.

She hasn’t spoken with her father in a while. It is better like this, because people see her now, in a way that they hadn’t initially been able to. 

They are a little hesitant, at first, always cautious of the disgraced daughter of a noble clan, but soon people approach her, and then—they avoid her for the simple reason that she is terrifying at her best. 

Hinata smiles and bears it, because no matter what, they’re _seeing_ her, and that’s what counts.

 

* * *

 

Kakashi-sensei tells her team that he’s thinking about retiring.

A week later, he hands them the papers that declare him a civilian, and, with a wink, tells them, “Expect me to stick around for a while, though . . . civilian life might be boring, and who knows where the road of life will take me?”

 

* * *

 

Team Kakashi, as they are known, although their proper name is Team Seven, is an assault team. 

Naruto, with his immense chakra reserves, is always in front, but he is not the main player, not by a long shot. He hits hard and heavy and makes people _think_ he’s used everything up with a first strike, and when he fades into the background Hinata comes out swinging and yelling.

Hinata is their core. She comes out with her Byakugan activated, chakra pathways around her eyes puffy and ugly and swollen with power, and she lays waste to dozens of enemies at a time. She spins, a whirlpool of death, hair jet-black and eyes moon-white, and those who know her know to run.

Sasuke is there to pick off any who dares to come close to her, any who dare to sneak past her. He runs full-force at enemies with lightning trailing behind him, and his signature move is well-known but hard to guard against. It’s a simple hand through the heart, really, and the problem is that he’s so _fast_ that people don’t know how to avoid him.

When Hinata has exhausted her chakra, or as much of it as she is willing to, Naruto comes out for a second strike. Naruto assures that no survivors, save for the ones that they have taken on purpose, will remain. 

Kakashi-sensei rarely needs to intervene in their fights anymore.

They’re known for never having lost a major battle. They’re known for being even stronger than the Sannin had been. They’re known for showing up hours before their supposed team leader does, and they’re known for bringing Copy-nin Kakashi flowers every week.

They are known for having the Demon of Konoha on their team—and the Demon of Konoha’s name is Hyūga Hinata. She will never let anybody forget it.

 

* * *

 

Years later, she’s fighting at the end of the war, and she’s one of the first out there fighting, on the _front lines,_ and when she comes home bloody and grinning, people congratulate her, and clap her on the back, and call her ‘Hinata’ and offer to buy drinks for her.

People touch her.

People see her.

People know her.

She is happy.


End file.
